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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



021 048 338 A 



Hollinger 

pH 85 

Mill Run F03-2193 



LAND LIMITATION 

THE REMEDY FOR 

LAND MONOPOLY. 




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The organization known as the Land Reform: Association previous to 
the revolt of the States of the South, having suspended its labor during the 
strife and the period which has elapsed since that struggle, have seen fit 
through its surviving members to reorganize for the purpose of carrying 
out its original objects. Foreseeing that large landed proprietors and Mo- 
nopolizing incorporations were likely to become a dangerous if not the para- 
mount power in the Central as well as in the local legislation of the States, 
at the birth of this movement, its projectors conceived the idea of restricting 
within the States the amount of lands to be held by either individuals or 
corporations. Preferring a landed democracy to an aristocracy of large 
landholders, and having persistently contended for the passage of a Home- 
stead Bill, which should have been enacted upon the basis of an equitable 
distribution, and being disappointed in the half-way measure of the present 
Homestead Law, in obedience to the Spirit of the Age, we again plant our- 
selves upon the rock of that irresistable Natural law, with whose power we 
come to claim for our fellow-beings free access to a living portion of that 
earth which our Great Father has created. 

To forward the attainment of this desired, as well as Constitutional 
right, we therefore summon the American people to seek for and make use of 
such means as will effectually arrest the completion of the contemplated 
schemes whereby the lands of this great nation are being legislated out of 
the hands of the people If we call for the evidence to establish the truth of 
this unjustifiable and wholesale robbery, are we not presented with the 
alarming fact, that within the last quarter of a century, that at each succeed- 
ing session of Congress there have appeared an additional number of the 
rapacious and unprincipled to plot and bargain with the representatives of 
the Republic as to the devices and pretexts which should be usal to effect 
the purposes for the repetition of this unpardonable wrong. Substituting a 
low species of cunning for the more manly force of the brutality of the 
sword, from whence proceeded the title deeds of the landed usurpers of 
Europe, these accumulating monopolists, under the pretense for promoting 
the public good, have interposed the building of railroads as the agent for 
carrying out their monstrous designs. Advancing to destroy the prospect 
of a happier condition for rising generations and the stability of the Gov- 
ernment, they seize upon the lands of the former and the monies of the latter, 
and have thus secured to themselves and heirs more wealth than would pay 
for the building of the whole of the existing or needed railroads of the world. 
With the execution of this premeditated intention for rearing and establish- 
ing a huge landed oligarchy, this combination or class have assumed a posi- 
tion similar to the Mailed Norman Robbers, who aportioned among them- 
selves the lands of a submissive and helpless people. Under the specious 
plea of benefitting the country by railroads where, as well as where they are 
not wanted, they are rapidly relieving the Government of the nearest, 
choicest, and most available parts of the peoples' domain. In fact, this 
unrighteous appropriation of the National means has been so shamelessly 
rapid, that the emigrant even now has to travel near to the setting sun before 
he can partake of the benefit of the Homestead Law. With the voracious and 
gluttonous instinct of the vulture, these men, or their agents, traverse the 
route of the gift-given lands for the railroads, and secures all of the lateral or 
contiguous acres, thus placing it beyond the means of the head of a family to 
reach those which they have been told were reserved for gratuitous settle- 
ment. Again does not the adroitness oi these schemers force the emigrant, 



who is the legitimate owner of this very land, to buy the portion of the soil 
for which the monopolist has rendered no equivalent. If this is not foster- 
ing or creating by legislation a gigantic structure for the establishment 
of an overbearing and tyrauical aristocracy, what is it? Let us ask of our 
legislators if this process of passing over to individuals or combinations 
the innumerable millions of dollars worth of the joint heritage of present 
and future generations, is not a violation of the fundamental principles of 
this Government ? 

Mismanagement of the Peoples' Inheritance. 

Upon the immediate organization of the lirst national administration, the 
then Secretary of the Treasury inaugurated as a part of his financial system 
an erroneous method for disposing of the public lands, influenced with the 
desire for paying off the debt incurred by the revolution, he presumed that 
the capitalists of Europe would readily purchase the foregoing upon the most 
extensive scale; and to meet this expectation, it was stipulated that no per- 
son would be permitted to buy less than 640 acres. In this he was however 
mistaken, as it appeared that the monied lords of the continent would not 
embark in an enterprise which was in their estimation hazardous. Provi- 
dentially for the people of the period, the men to whom we refer, although 
imbued with the disposition to advance their own selfish interest, conject- 
ured that it was much safer to confine and enlarge the sphere of their 
exactions at home, than to venture or invest their capital in a country, the 
nature of whose government originated, and as they thought, must expire in 
the vissionary vapor of an evanescent experiment. Failing in the contem- 
plated flow of monies into the treasury, and though embarrassed in the dis- 
charge of his financial obligations, yet he did not give up the idea for the 
passing of the lands into the hands of native and accredited monopolizers. 
Retaining the wish as well as the power to assist in laying the foundation 
for the debasing introduction of that pauperism and crime, which is the 
inevitable result of its consequences in the country whose modelized perfec- 
tion was the continued theme of his admiration, he never attempted to alter 
his original plan for the letting in of the small or industrious cultivator. 
Urging the policy which he had put forth as an obligated necessity for the 
liquidation of the national debt, no modification of our land system was 
thought of by the subsequent administration of the elder Adams, and it was 
not until the election of Mr. Jefferson that any reformation was offered or 
encouraged. In the investigation which took place under the direction of 
the latter, it was discovered that large quantities of the lands which it was 
imagined had been paid for, remained in the possession of the accredited and 
original purchasers. It was also ascertained that so intent was the purpose 
for carrying out the policy before mentioned, that prolonged intervals of 
time had been repeatedly given in order to enable these privileged favorites 
to meet their liabilities to the Government. 

Obtaining an insight of the sort of special legislation which had been 
resorted to, to sustain this preconcerted arrangement for breathing into the 
needy branches of leading families the vitality for becoming the landed lords 
of the people, Mr. Jefferson, sustained by legislation, reduced the 640 to 160 
acres, which in the future could be obtained for the diminished amount of 
$1 25 instead of $2 per acre. Such was the state of things up to the dis- 
charge of the debts of the wars of 76 and 1812. Previous, however, to the 
cancelling of such obligation, two plans for the getting rid of the lands was 
being agitated; the first was to sell the entire domain and divide the monies 
therefrom amongst the then existing States ; and the second proposition was 
to aportiou these lands amongst the latter. Doubtless these different pro- 
jects sprang from the two pervading and opposite interests of the represent- 
atives of a Southern slave and that of the more potential aristocracy of the 
white wages slaves of the period. These two distinct plans coming from 
distinguished sources arose from the apprehension, that if some such distri- 
bution or absorption of this unlimited wealth was not placed beyond the 
reach of its legitimate owners — the people — the latter would in a short time 
be found claiming their individual and fractional share of it. This fear of 
the anticipated rising and the too long deferred demand for the observance 
of justice was tangible for antecediug the propositions above referred to, the 
Land Reformers of New York were attentively engaged in considering the 
subject. Fortunately, too, for the stability of our Republican institutions, 



General Jackson, who was in the White House, gave the death-blow to both 
of the pernicious plans heretofore mentioned, by declaring in his message of 
1832, " That the public lands should no longer be sold for the purposes of 
Revenue, but that they should be reserved for the free and exclusive use of 
actual settlers." 

By this brief analysis of the crafty and partially successful efforts through 
which our citizens have been stript of a great portion of their invaluable 
resources, it is as apparent as it is necessary, that they should adopt some 
contravening policy whereby to prevent the farther loss of their conjoint and 
common property. In order to withstay the subsequent action of Congress 
to abuse the confidence and prowl upon the substance of their constituents, 
we call upon our citizens throughout these United States to select in each of 
their Congressional Districts no man to represent them unless he will explic- 
itly avow his determination to reserve the remnent of our Public Domain for 
the free and exclusive use of present and future generations. Superadded to 
this proposition, we also recommend another which we know will be accept- 
able, and this is a limitation to the further aggressions of capital in the mo- 
nopoly of land. Believing that while the first of the foregoing propositions 
will not meet with opposition, save from the retainers and upholders of this 
already established and corrupt oligarchy of railroad owners, let us examine 
the best and most efficient measures to checkmate and baffle them in the an- 
ticipated accumulation of the riches which they intend shall be one long and 
continued stream for the unholy perpetuation of their ill-gotten power. 



Land Limitation. 

In surveying the numerous and pervading evils which obstructs and 
prevents the masses of every country from attaining the enjoyment of their 
natural and inalienable rights, there is no one of them that is so strongly 
calculated to effect, accomplish and transmit the permanent slavery of 
human kind, as that of the prevailing system for enabling a privileged few 
to seize upon and buy up the lands of a country. We must indeed, be the 
victims of the darkest phase of mental capability, if we cannot discover the 
fact that all wealth primarily springs from the earth; and if such is the 
nature of this incontrovertable axiom, it must be as indisputably evident 
that the unrestrained or unlimited order of landholders are hence the direct 
oppressors and masters of every peoples'. Like unto the various abuses to 
which the human family have been subjected, we find that no mitigation nor 
relief came, until in each the mist of ignorance in which it was enrolled was 
unfolded and exposed. So, too, is it with the man degrading instrumentality 
of allowing a heartless class to appropriate and retain that which should be 
rightfully diffused among the many. It must also be observed that the 
people of this, as of other nations, have heretofore patiently submitted to the 
imposition of laws which were purposely framed by an ancient and heathen 
state to create and maintain the distinction of classes through the retention 
of large lauded estates. When, however, this question shall be probed in all 
of its iniquitious aspects, we must inevitably arrive at the conclusion that 
the sequestration and monopoly of the soil has been permitted simply for the 
reason that such usurpation has not been intelligently disputed. 

When our Ancestors refused to incorporate in the Constitution, either 
titled dignity or the law of primogeniture, it was thought that such absence 
for the creation of Caste was sufficient of itself to check and prevent the 
accumulation and concentration of landed property with the few. This, their 
view of the subject, had they been permitted to live to the present time, 
would have been altered, as they would have witnessed with us the danger- 
ous rising of a species of landlordism, which if not arrested in its career, will 
march over the ruins of that social and political equality wfiich they had so 
earnestly striven to insure. Is it not a lamentable truth that a vicious sys- 
tem of landed jurisprudence is inflicted upon us by its transmission through 
the questionable channel of Roman and English sources. What are we to 
expect when we learn that from thence has been derived this most unjust 
authority for the present formation of the race of vaunted and foolishly 
extolled millionaires, who almost own cities and States at the cost of the 
millions they are pauperizing. 

As a general thing it is seldom that the direction of our senses are turned 
toward the nature of the causes by which our fellow-beings are held in the 



021 048 338 A 



grasp of an apparent never-ceasing thraldom ; and just as long as this is tne 
case, so will transgressors against the rights of their fellow-men be sur- 
rounded with the means for maintaining the wickedness of a position to lash 
and goad them into the strait of a wretched condition. When, however, 
mankind will be so instructed as to insist upon throwing the partition down 
which their oppressors have raised between them, by resorting to such clap- 
trap as the rights and duties of the monopolizers of land, that like them- 
selves, they are entitled to no more of the God -created elements of nature, 
than all of us have the right to claim and hold as the essential substance for 
the security of existence ; 

The framers of this Government, having failed as we see in their estima- 
tion of the effective results of doing away with the law of primogeniture and 
following the otherwise exclusive mode for the unrestrained acquisition of 
landed property entailed by the Mo her Country, hence this imaginary secu- 
rity or neglect is now bringing upon us the full and direful visitation of the 
evils which are the consequences of this pernicious system. This is so evi- 
dent that the declaration "of the pursuit of happiness " to the indigent and 
industrious masses is receding into the shadow of a delusive and unmeaning 
utterance, and th s condition being but the offshoot of an irretrievable 
sequence of an unnatural and unjust law, the injured must supercede it by 
the guarantee of a more equitable plan of the greatest good for the whole of 
our citizens. 

As this evil of the absorption of the land is being felt in, and over every 
region of our country, the remedy in its application must be general. If it 
is to be beneficial, it must be extended, not only to the remote landholder, 
but it must be made to reach the overgrown possessor of the ten, fifty, and 
one hundred million extortioners of villages and cities. Whilst the laws 
have been conventionally and legislatively created to protect us from the 
detailed thievery of such as follow this profession, let us enlarge the scope of 
our vision and behold the working of the yet more inexcusable and danger- 
ous class who determine by law that the industrious shall not acquire any- 
thing which is worth the stealing. By limiting the quantity of land which 
any individual or corporation shall hold outside towns or munincipalities, 
and restricting the denizens of cities to a given number of lots within such 
localities, we will place it beyond the power of the former to obstruct the 
increase of small landed proprietors, and in the latter we will remove the 
most objectionable feature of seeing individuals or families the owners of 
three-fourths of our cities. 

By the proposition to confine the landholder to a given and reasonable 
amount of the requisite quantity for either Agricultural or City purposes, we 
feel that we invade no right which is founded in natural or ethical justice; 
but on the contrary, that we are endeavoring to throw open a wider range 
and the incoming for the fuller sway for the enjoyment of a more extensive 
field of the too long delayed, but yet comprehensive happiness of our fellow- 
ritizens. 

In again renewing the contest for the rights to which the people are 
justly entitled, we apprehend that the struggle will be neither doubtful or 
protracted. Unlike the oppressed masses of our European brethreu, we do 
not as yet furnish a portion of the male members of our families to hold the 
other portions of it subject to the constant revisitation of the oppressive 
edicts of tyrants. On the other hand we are the masters of our own destiny, 
for we are in the possession of the power which, by the united action of fam- 
ilies, communities and States, we can materially modify and change the 
selfishly advancing strides of the sordid tyranny of landlordism. Neither 
are we alone in the battle for the prostration of antiquated wrongs and the 
dawn of regenerating progress, for already the reverberation of the trumpet 
sound of a truer civilization is being heard on land and sea, in the factory 
and workshop, and the undulations of its vibration is passing its summon of 
hope to the needy farmer and field-laborer. The nations of Europe through 
their legitimate representatives at the Congress of Delegated Workingmen, 
in Switzerland, have struck the key-note of a conflict which in its termina- 
tion will obtain that for which Philosophers have sighed and the earnest 
Christian have yearned; for with the redistribution of the lauds will ap- 
proach the long-looked for era of" Peace on earth and good will to men." 

By order of 

THE NEW YORK LAND REFORM ASSOCIATION. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



021 048 338 ft 



Hollinger 

pH 8.5 

Mill Run F03-2193 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



021 048 338 A 



Hollinger 

pH 8.5 

Mill Run F03-2193 



